1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to power transfer to Power over Ethernet (PoE) devices (or Powered Devices (PD)). More specifically, the present invention provides a power classification system and method with an increased current limit for high power PoE/PD devices.
2. Related Art
Currently, the IEEE 802.3af™ standard (IEEE Amendment, Jun. 18, 2003) only supports power classification up to 15.4 watts per port. However, there is currently a demand to power higher power devices (for example, wireless access points and internet protocol phones), which can consume more power than the IEEE 802.3af™ standard supports. Thus, for these higher power PoE/PD devices, increasing the power classification current limit currently imposed by the IEEE 802.3af™ standard is one way to add more power classes. To do this while also supporting the current standard, the number of classifications will need to increase beyond the five classes (class 0 to class 4) currently defined. An effort to minimize power dissipation on a die is also needed.